Mobile communication devices have become increasingly common in current society. The prevalence of these mobile communication devices is driven in part by the many functions that are now enabled on such devices. Demand for such functions increases the processing capability requirements for the mobile communication devices. As a result, increasingly complex integrated circuits (ICs) have been designed and manufactured to provide increasingly greater functionality in the mobile communication devices. Concurrent with the increase in complexity of the ICs, there has been pressure to decrease the footprint of the ICs as well.
It has become more challenging to increase yields and improve quality of the ICs during fabrication and production processes. As such, there is a growing interest in the effect of electrostatic discharge (ESD) during fabrication of the ICs, assembly of devices that use the ICs, and the operation of the ICs. ESD can be seen as a miniature lightning bolt of static charge between two surfaces that have different electrical potentials. Without proper protection, static charge movement associated with ESD may generate an electrical current high enough to damage or even destroy the passive and active devices, such as diodes and transistors, thus, rendering the ICs dysfunctional.